Automatic telephone systems and Automatic call distribution systems are well known and for that reason are not described in detail. These telephone systems are found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,788,718 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,025,468 and the references cited therein. In the operation of these automatic telephone systems and automatic call distribution systems, the callers are placed on hold and then, in the case of the ACD System, are connected to the next available agent according to a priority system. Within this system, is employed the concept of a queue. The amount of time that the caller or a number of callers may be placed in the queue and on hold depends upon the priority system and the values contained within the priority systems structure. ACD Systems, according to their function, hold callers in the queue and then connect callers to agents for interaction communication.
According to ACD function a single agent is reserved for, and connected to, each individual caller. What such an ACD scheme does not have is the capability of collecting a number of callers by a common identifying parameter and broadcasting a message to the collected callers. Additionally, the ACD system requires an agent be provided. Provisions are not made in the ACD scheme for providing an appropriate message for each such identified group of callers. Additionally, separate connections are required to be made in the ACD scheme to each, one for each separate agent. Provisions are not made for providing a single message source and for connecting that message source to a multiple groups of assembled callers either singularly in time or simultaneously through a multiplex scheme.